Chevuru plates of Amma I

These three plates are the fourth known charter of Amma I, the Eastern Chalukya king who reigned for seven years.¹ In J. F. Fleet’s chronology he reigned from September 918 to August 925.¹ B. Ch. Chhabra, who edited the plates, noted that other scholars had since arrived at slightly different dates.¹

Unlike Amma’s other grants, these plates do not reward a Brahmin.²³ They make a soldier, Vemaraja, the headman of a village.²³ They were issued at the first-feeding ceremony of the king’s infant son.²³

Discovery

Chhabra found the plates in the possession of a peasant, Pulovarapa Ankayya, son of Venkata Reddi, of Chevuru village in the Kaikalur taluk of Krishna (then Kistna) district.⁴ He heard of them by chance from a resident of the neighbouring village of Singarayapalem, while touring the area in November 1938.⁴ He borrowed them with the help of the revenue inspector of Vadali and the village accountant (karanam) of Chevuru.⁴

He was shown the spot where the peasant’s spade had turned them up.⁴ It was a heap of debris from a ruined mud house, whose old earth was being dug for manure.⁴ That had happened about ten years before his visit, and the plates had lain unnoticed with their finder ever since.⁴ See Chevuru.

Description

There are three plates, each about 8½ inches broad and 4¼ inches high.⁴ They are strung on an uncut copper ring about 4½ inches across.⁴ The ring’s ends are fixed under a round seal about 2¾ inches across.⁴

The second plate is written on both sides, and the first and third on the inner side only.⁴ Raised rims have kept the writing well preserved from start to finish.⁴

The seal, slightly damaged at the bottom, carries the legend Sri-Tribhuvanankusa across the centre.⁴² Above it is a running boar facing right, with an elephant-goad in front of it and a crescent with a star above.⁴² Below it is an open lotus.⁴² Chhabra noted that some scholars take the dot within the crescent for the sun.²

Script and language

Chhabra placed the letters in the southern class of alphabets, regular for the period and place.² He described them as forerunners of the modern Telugu characters.² They include the letters ḷ and ṟ, peculiar to Telugu and other southern languages.²

The language is Sanskrit, except that lines 26 to 30 are mostly in Telugu.² The text is in prose apart from three closing verses, the last of which names the composer.²

Content

The order is addressed to the householders of the Gudravara district (vishaya), headed by the village headmen.³¹⁵ Amma I bears here the full imperial titles Maharajadhiraja, Paramesvara and Paramabhattaraka.³¹⁵ He also has the epithet Gandaraganda and the surnames Raja-Mahendra and Vishnuvardhana.³¹⁵ He is called a devout worshipper of Shiva (paramamahesvara), which Chhabra noted was new for this king.³¹⁵

The preamble does not list the reigns of all the earlier kings, as Amma I’s other grants do.³¹ It names only his father Vijayaditya (IV), praised for his liberality, and his grandfather Chalukya-Bhima (I), praised for his victories.³¹ Amma himself is praised for subduing his kinsmen.³¹

The beneficiary was a warrior named Vemaraja, son of Manohitarya, who was the younger brother of a Rajaditya.²⁶ Vemaraja was the grandson of Chandeyaraja of the Kona family.²⁶ Chandeyaraja had been headman of the same village of Umikili.²⁶ He had received the honour of riding an elephant from king Vijayaditya alias Gunakkenalla, whom Chhabra took to be Gunaga Vijayaditya III.²⁶

The grant calls Vemaraja the Sudraka of the Kali age, after a legendary hero.³⁶ It says that he had served Amma’s father Vijayaditya loyally and obediently.³⁶

Pleased with this service, Amma made him headman (gramani) of Umikili.²⁶ He was exempt from every tax except the fixed tribute of eight gadyanakas (gold coins) that had long been customary.²⁶ Chhabra took the gadyanaka to be a gold coin.²⁶ He understood the arrangement as, in effect, a grant of the village.²⁶

The boundaries that follow, in Telugu, describe two fields called Ervvoka, one south and one north of the village.⁵⁶ One adjoins Dadrupaka, a royal demesne (royal land) and a plot belonging to the Chandalas.⁵⁶ The other adjoins a stream called Vannegu.⁵⁶ The passage ends with dues to be received in grain.⁵⁶

C. R. Krishnamacharlu, in a note to the edition, suggested from these boundaries that the gift may have consisted only of the two fields.³

The executor (samajnapti) was the Katakesvara, whom the grant praises as able to guard the Vengi country.¹⁶ Chhabra noted that his personal name is not given, and rendered the title as governor of the royal camp.¹⁶ The composer was Bhatta Mahakala, son of Bhatta Niravadya.¹⁶ Chhabra thought him a different man from the general Mahakala who received Amma I’s Masulipatam grant.¹

The infant prince

The occasion of the gift was the annaprasana, the first feeding with solid food, of prince Vijayaditya, Amma I’s son.³¹ This prince reigned for a fortnight as Vijayaditya V and was also called Beta.³¹ Since that ceremony is usually held in the child’s sixth month, Chhabra inferred that the prince was then about six months old.³¹

He also argued that the grant is the latest of Amma I’s four known charters.¹ His reason was that only here does the king use the imperial titles, which he took to show that Amma had by then subdued his opponents.¹ If so, Beta-Vijayaditya V must have been a baby when he succeeded his father in 925.¹

In a footnote Chhabra cited an earlier parallel.³ A remote ancestor of Amma I, Mangi-yuvaraja (672–696), had given land at Eluru, the modern Ellore, to a Brahmin.³ He did so on the first-feeding ceremony of his son Vishnuvardhana III.³ See Amma I and the succession wars of 925–945.

Grants to soldiers

Chhabra pointed out that none of the four known charters of Amma I records a gift to a Brahmin.³ These are the charters from Machilipatnam (then Masulipatam), Ederu, Tenali and Chevuru.³ Each honours a man of military rank, even on an occasion like a prince’s first feeding, when a Brahmin’s claim might have been expected.³ He suggested that a king almost always at war with his kinsmen or with the Rashtrakutas may have deliberately favoured soldiers to keep them loyal.³

Fleet, in 1891, had known only the Machilipatnam and Idara (Ederu) grants.⁷⁸ The first gives a village to Mahakala, who had been a general of Bhima I.⁷⁸ The second gives one to Bhandanaditya, otherwise called Kuntaditya, of the Pattavardhini family.⁷⁸ See the Ederu plates of Amma I.

Places named

The Gudravara district appears in many Eastern Chalukya inscriptions, under several spellings.⁹ It had been identified both with Guduru near Machilipatnam and with Gudivada.⁹ Chhabra thought Gudivada more likely.⁹

He identified the village of Umikili with Unikili, and the boundary village of Dadrupaka with Rudrapaka, both in the Kaikalur taluk.⁹ The taluk map, he noted, shows Rudrapaka about a mile and a half south of Unikili, as the inscription says.⁹ He added that the Kaikalur taluk had formerly been part of the Gudivada taluk, so that Chevuru and its neighbours once lay in the latter.⁹

Footnotes

1. Chhabra, “Chevuru Plates” (1956), p. 44 and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰

2. Chhabra, “Chevuru Plates of Eastern Chalukya Amma I” (1956), p. 42 and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰

3. Chhabra, “Chevuru Plates” (1956), p. 43 and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³

4. B. Ch. Chhabra, “Chevuru Plates of Eastern Chalukya Amma I”, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (1947–48, publ. 1956), p. 41 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

5. Chhabra, “Chevuru Plates” (1956), p. 46, text (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

6. Chhabra, “Chevuru Plates” (1956), p. 47, translation (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷

7. J. F. Fleet, “The Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings”, Indian Antiquary XX (1891), p. 266 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. Fleet, “The Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings” (1891), p. 267 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

9. Chhabra, “Chevuru Plates” (1956), p. 45 and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶